


I Can Hardly Breathe When I'm Around You

by Jarate_Man



Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)
Genre: 5 Times, 5+1 Things, Boss/Employee Relationship, Broken Promises, Explosions, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Loss of a Lover, M/M, Minor Character Death, Orphans, Partners to Lovers, Promises, Suicidal Thoughts, mentioned Human Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28188411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jarate_Man/pseuds/Jarate_Man
Summary: This is a 5 + 1 fic; 5 times Agent Aban Stone couldn't breathe and 1 time he made Ivo not breathe.The story is mainly based on the RP that I'm in, with the only exceptions being that Wade isn't together with Stone and Robotnik and that Tom still exists in this universe. The way that this all went, I didn't really know how to make Tom leave and Wade get with the Stone and Robotnik, so sorry everyone in the RP for not getting Whipplenik here 😔I do wanna say that there is no real major character death. There is death, but not with Stone and Robotnik (besides Robotnik being thrown into the mushroom planet and something big happening with Stone that I won't say because spoilers). I wanted to put that there so people know it isn't all just fun and cutesie here, just wanted to clarify that real quick. But please read at your own risk, please.
Relationships: Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik & Agent Stone, Dr. Eggman | Dr. Robotnik/Agent Stone
Comments: 2
Kudos: 15





	I Can Hardly Breathe When I'm Around You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Littlegreensunflower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlegreensunflower/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Icarus Files](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27514972) by [Littlegreensunflower](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littlegreensunflower/pseuds/Littlegreensunflower). 



Breathing.

It’s a fundamental aspect of human life. If you stop breathing, you obviously die. There are different reasons as to why someone may stop breathing, such as: 

  * You’re dead
  * A powerful force has hit you, causing all of the oxygen from your lungs to escape
  * Something is preventing oxygen from going through your airways



There is one more reason, the most beautiful and precious one of all.

  * Similar to number 2, a force has caused the oxygen to escape your lungs. However this time, it’s from being surprised by something, either positive or negative, that is powerful enough to leave you gasping and possibly in tears.



Aban Stone had only experienced the first 3, the first one obviously not permanent. Born, or rather created in a lab, he went by the name “Agent Salano”, but the more popular one was “Icarus”. Since he was the first creation by both Dr. Gerald Robotnik and Dr. Jago Salano, he was gifted with the privilege of only being called “Icarus”. He hadn’t adopted the name “Aban Stone” yet, but for the sake of preventing confusion, we shall call him “Aban” unless called otherwise.

Aban was only 24 years old when he was called to the entrance of ARK. Something was happening and, from the whisperings of other agents, a child was involved. He walked through a small crowd who had gathered around the front, but immediately dispersed when he arrived. Gerald was standing there with a bundle of blankets in his arms. His face was crestfallen and tears were falling down his face. It was an extremely rare sight and made Aban feel like he was interrupting something important.

Gerald looked at him and gave him such a defeated smile. Age, hardly ever present on the doctor’s face, finally showed through to reveal how old he was.

“He didn’t even have a chance at a normal life,” he whispered, looking back down at the bundle in his arms. “My daughter and her husband were attacked by a rival corporation, probably trying to get close to them to get our secrets. My son-in-law died, and my daughter’s in a coma. He was the only one who survived.” A sigh, a pause, a few more tears. “When he gets older, I’ll tell him they were in a car crash and his father died. I don’t want him to grow up with bloodlust.”

Aban looked down at the child and gasped. A baby, hardly even older than a couple days, was fast asleep in the black blanket he was wrapped up in. A few specks of blood were on his forehead, which eerily went with his small head of red hair. Aban almost started crying for the innocent child, who could have had the life he always dreamed of having. A loving family, a bright future, a chance to live life freely, away from all the needles and electrodes and physical checkups every single day. Gerald said something that Aban didn’t register, but he passed on the baby to Aban and walked away.

He stared at the child, unable to breathe. He was in shock for a child he only found out existed a minute ago. He felt something on his cheeks but thought nothing of it until a tear fell onto the baby’s face. The child woke up a bit and looked at him with such innocent brown eyes, so oblivious of the irreversible damage that happened in his life, that Aban started crying harder.

When he was finally able to speak, he whispered, “I promise I’ll protect you. I promise."

* * *

The fire burned bright in his eyes as he stared hopelessly at it. Of course, he was the reason behind it, but it still shocked him nonetheless. About 7 years after little Ivo Robotnik came to the facility, all hell broke loose. Gerald was taken from ARK, interrogated for hours, and finally shot in the back of the head for not agreeing to kill off the Shadow Project, a project that was supposed to help bring Ivo’s mom back to full health and up on her feet. A project that was supposed to save one person had killed two, as well as condemned the fate of the first person and convinced everyone at the hospital to pull the plug in fear that ARK would come after them too.

It enraged Aban to such a degree that he had never experienced before. He was able to process the smallest orders, the simplest of questions, the bare minimum for a couple hours. Once he finally cleared his head enough to think clearly, he started planning the demise of the ARK facility. He was created to be a killer, but knowing that he couldn’t be there to stop the death of one of the only people he cared about broke him in such a way he couldn’t explain. 

Another smaller explosion came from the west wing of the facility, where Aban knew used to be the lab he was tested on and the room he was forced to call his “home”. He laughed coldly as the wave of heat from the blast passed over him. He lifted his arms and reveled in the chaos he created. Such a drastic shift from the past few minutes where he could only cry and stare as wave after wave of air from the blasts hit him and choked him with the sand around him.

He could hear the helicopters from some branch of the government fly overhead; it didn’t matter who it was, Aban knew that they would ask questions that would be too difficult to answer. He closed his eyes, humming a Russian lullaby that Gerald once taught him in one of his Russian lessons so Aban could sing Ivo to sleep if needed to. 

His mind drifted to the child as he felt a building guilt and regret. Ivo had just lost the only family he had, with Maria Robotnik’s death closely following Gerald’s and sealing Ivo’s fate of being an orphan with no one and nowhere to go. Aban had sent for one of the agents that he knew would protect Ivo with his life take the child away from ARK, under the impression that it was because of the death of his last family members and not because Aban would blow up the organization that created him. 

A memory surfaced as he continued watching the facility blow up. _Gerald had him in a room with a two-way mirror, watching Ivo interact with the children they had taken in to start training them. There was a peaceful silence between the two of them as they watched the kids have their fun. “If anything happens to me,” Gerald said, breaking the silence, “Promise me you’ll take care of Ivo and Maria.”_

_Aban was startled, to say the least. He furrowed his eyebrows as the possibility of Gerald dying froze the blood in his veins. “Nothing is going to happen to you, Dr. Robotnik, why would you even insinuate something like that?”_

_“Do you promise me this, Icarus?” Gerald asked him, gentle eyes holding Aban’s attention and pleading him to answer. Aban was choked up, knowing how much a promise meant to Gerald. He nodded and stared right into the doctor’s eyes, showing he meant the words he was about to utter._

_“I promise I’ll take care of him.”_

The memory fizzled out as tears that were still somehow in his body flowed out of his eyes, the feeling of guilt so strong it almost brought the man to his knees. _He’s going to be put in the foster care system because of me. I promised Gerald to take care of Ivo, and I broke it. I know I did. Who would let me take care of a child after I did this?_

An intense wind came from behind him as one of the helicopters touched down on the ground. He heard people come out of the aircraft, multiple pairs of boots march down onto the sand, and the cocks of their guns that were surely aimed at him as Aban saw the lasers that didn’t hit his body streak the land in front of him.

“Stand down, Icarus!” one of the military officers, who Aban knew to be called Private Riley, commanded as he raised the assault rifle he had. Aban raised his arms above his head and turned around to face the army in front of him as his body shook with emotions he couldn’t name. He looked up at Private Riley and without a moment's hesitation, he ran towards him.

He had no reason for his actions except to feel the pain that he knew he deserved. He let the family he was supposed to protect die, he broke his promise to one of the only people that mattered to him, and even if he loathed being a government agent, he lost the only life that he knew how to live. Hundreds of bullets entered his body as he struggled to regain the breath he lost as he screamed, tumbling to the ground and praying that he would never wake up again.

* * *

_I’m such an idiot,_ Aban thought as he stood still in the line of agents that were being given the “punishment” of working with Dr. Robotnik. When he heard the child he took care of for a chunk of his life turned into a respected, albeit feared, scientist who had multiple Master’s degrees and 5 Ph.D.’s and specialized in robotics, he knew he had to sign up for the job. But based on all the stories that he’s heard from every agent that had worked for the doctor (which was many and that concerned him even more), Ivo had turned into someone nobody wanted to mess with. 

Ivo was walking towards him as he did a once-over of each agent, a quick look at their files, and if he approved of them, he would nod and tilt his head to the other wall. There were agents that sighed in relief both from being chosen and from not being chosen. The hard tap of the agents’ shoes contrasted with the soft thumps of Ivo’s sneakers and the quiet _whoosh_ of his coat jacket. Aban had to admit: Even if the entire outfit was so horribly put together, he pulled it off wonderfully. _I mean, how does a man wear clothes that are 3 different types of black, or a turtleneck and jeans, or_ **_a lab coat and sneakers_** _, and somehow make it work?_

It was finally his turn. Ivo was about to walk right past him when he paused. He slowly turned his head to look at Aban, and the quiet whispering from the other side of the room stopped as all the agents turned to look at this mysterious event. No one, and I repeat, _no one_ , had ever made Ivo stop in the middle of him selecting his agents.

“You have no age here.”

The statement was said so silently Aban almost didn’t hear it, but the impact of the words uttered left the whole room speechless.

“I, I’m sorry?” Aban asked, not knowing what to say. He didn’t know why his file was acting like this, one of his friends was supposed to have fixed it so Aban’s cover wouldn’t be blown. He couldn’t be outed about who he was and what he used to do, especially not to Dr. Robotnik. 

_Dr. Robotnik_ , he thought as he ran the name through his mind. It felt… strange to call Ivo by his last name and his title, but he couldn’t be calling him “Ivo” when there was a possibility that he would be working for him in the future. 

“Look up.”

Aban looked up only to stare into brown eyes turned black with concealed rage, as sharp as the rocks at the bottom of a seaside cliff. Each tiny flicker of the iris as Dr. Robotnik searched him for _something_ made Aban freeze in his tracks, like prey in the focus of a predator. He was breathless as fear coursed through his vein; even if he had faced much more difficult situations, something behind Robotnik’s eyes made him think he knew Aban’s secret.

“Who are you, exactly?” the doctor whispered. Aban straightened up, looked through Robotnik since he knew he didn’t have the privilege to look him in the eyes again.

“My name is Secret Agent Aban Stone.” _Stop and don’t say anything anymore._ Oh, but wishful thinking didn’t prevent the rapid-fire of questions that followed.

“How long have you been working here?”

“27 years”

“How many people have you worked under?”

“7, sir, not including the people I’ve been assigned to protect”

“How many people have you been assigned to work for, then?”

“50.”

“How many _of_ those people are still alive?”

“44.”

“Why were they killed?”

“3 of them have died from natural causes such as a heart attack, cancer, and simple food poisoning. A fourth was killed because he was drunk driving, and the last two were captured and killed.”

“Sounds like you didn’t really take care of them, now did you?” Dr. Robotnik taunted, crossing his arms and tilting his head backwards.

Aban stood up straighter, momentarily forgetting that he was talking to someone who he wanted to work for in the future. “I was pulled from protecting them 3 months and 1 year respectively before they were killed. It wasn’t my fault everyone else was too incompetent to take care of them properly.”

Another hush of silence filled the room that Aban didn’t even know was filled with quiet chatter. Another miracle was being witnessed by everyone: someone giving Dr. Robotnik sass. Aban quietly resigned his fate of never being able to work with the man in front of him as he wondered how far down he would be demoted.

However, instead of bursting into a fit of rage as everyone expected, Dr. Robotnik chuckled. Aban had to force himself to not reveal the surprise on his face but the other clearly saw it.

“You’re a very interesting man, Agent Stone. Nobody has ever dared to speak to me in such a way, and a man such as yourself with such an extensive background of protecting others and working for our _dear_ government should be happy I didn’t force you to write your resignation in front of me.”

Aban swallowed, not knowing if he should smile at the praise he’s just received, chuckle at the blatant hatred towards the American government, or crumple up into a ball from the fear of possibly losing the only job he’s ever known once more. Dr. Robotnik moved to continue choosing which agents he would have for the month before turning back to Aban with a sarcastic yet genuine smile.

“I never did catch what your age is, agent.”

 _Shit, what did Markus say he put on the file?_ “I’m 43, sir.”

“That’s _Doctor_ to you, Agent Stone. Now, join the others on the right side of the room. I’ll be expecting you to arrive at 6 o’clock sharp with a coffee ready and your assigned files completely read and memorized.”

Aban walked over to that side of the room with the biggest grin that anybody had ever seen from him. That night was spent solely dedicated to remembering the entire 9-page file Dr. Robotnik had given him that was mostly text-based, and that morning the doctor walked into his laboratory with the delicious smell of brewed coffee with the particular smell of steamed milk (which he would eventually come to figure out was Austrian goats milk) and a ready agent with bags under his eyes and a bright smile that almost hurt to look at, but that he adored all the same.

* * *

The sweeping guilt that filled him when he couldn’t find Robotnik in the mobile lab was so large it felt like an elephant was sitting on his ribcage. He used all the tracking devices Robotnik had given him to track where he was as he attempted to catch the blue rodent. He had watched in wonder as his boss’ icon seemed to blip around the world, first in San Francisco, then in Paris, then China, Egypt, then Green Hills, then… nowhere. 

He stood still inside of the private house that he rented with Dr. Robotnik for the mission. Since he was the main agent for Dr. Robotnik, he was allowed to stay in the same room as him. But the bliss he felt from being granted the chance of being allowed to sleep in the same room as the man he loved was now turning into anxiety and pain as he rushed out of the room and toward the mobile lab. 

He had to be there, right? He had to, there could be no other explanation. The tracking device must have been malfunctioning because of a power surge created by the creature they were assigned to look for, that had to be it. Right now, Dr. Robotnik would be in the lab, twirling his beautiful mustache and chuckling softly in triumph, waiting for the door to open and his loyal agent to walk in so he could laugh in glee and give him that gorgeous smile he always gave Aban when he finally figured something out that gave him a hard time. He would be curled up in his chair like the lanky man he is, legs on the dashboard as the creature slept in a cage in the background, unaware of what scientific wonders the two men would discover once they got permission from their higher-ups. He would be there, Aban knew he would.

But when he went into the mobile lab, he didn’t see anyone. He held his breath, hesitantly walking around, wondering if he was even allowed to be here. He looked everywhere that Robotnik would usually be “hiding” (mainly fixing lights and repairing parts of the lab that required him to go into crawl spaces and such). He waited for hours, wondering when he would hear the soft hiss of the door as it opened and let the outside air in and the panting of Dr. Robotnik as he came back with their prized possession. 

It took the 200,003 checks of the monitor (yes, he actually counted) to finally snap. He was ripping things out of the walls and tossing shelves onto the floor, screaming all the while. The other agents came in with their guns out, yelling at Aban to stop. He turned to them, eyes red from the tears he’s shed and looking like an animal from how unhinged he had become. One of the agents, one nicknamed Agent Jade because of a special jade pendant that she wore every day, walked towards him with the gun still pointed to him.

“Why are you destroying the doctor’s work? Are you a spy for another country? State your purpose.” Aban tried to open his mouth to speak but he only collapsed onto his knees and looked helplessly at the screen that flashed red.

**[ERROR: TRACKING DEVICE OUT OF RANGE]**

He couldn’t breathe at all. He could only stare in abject horror and absolute disgust with himself for not preventing this from happening to explain what had happened. He looked at his hands and watched as his tears fell onto them, clouding his vision as he tried to convince himself it was all just a dream. 

* * *

A gust of wind startled Aban awake as papers flew in front of his face, obscuring his vision. He growled as he threw the papers onto the floor and pulled his gun out, still groggy. “Who’s there!” he screamed into the empty mobile lab.

It wasn’t empty for long, though. Once Aban opened his eyes, a golden circle appeared in front of him, and in it was an entire planet of mushrooms. In the middle of the circle… the man he lost so long ago.

He dropped the gun and watched as the man he grew to love, the one he thought was gone forever, walk back into this world and into his life. He tried to compose himself enough that he would seem like he wasn’t about to break down into tears from seeing the familiar red flight suit and those stunning brown eyes or that devilish smirk that all screamed Dr. Ivo Robotnik was in the room.

The man looked around, nodding silently as he scanned the room around him. “You’ve kept everything the way I wanted it to be. Good work, Agent Stone.”

The near sob he gave out made Robotnik tilt his head downwards at him, but instead of a grunt of disgust, his face became soft as he knelt down. He dropped a rock down on the floor and reached out a hand to Aban.

“I know, you’re impressed at my ability to be able to survive on an extraterrestrial planet for years on end and be able to find a way back to the planet I was created on,” Robotnik boasted, but Aban knew that he was trying to act brave so the tears wouldn’t fall down his face as well. He felt the doctor rub his thumb against his cheeks to wipe away the tears, which only made him cry harder.

The portal behind them closed up, ensuring that neither of them would ever have to think about that disgusting planet again. They stayed like that for seemingly hours on end, but it was only a few minutes. Then, Robotnik stood up, groaning as a couple of his bones began to creak.

“I don’t understand why my bones appear to be cracking, seeming how the gravitational pull on the mushroom planet was stronger than on this planet.” Aban looked up at that comment, wondering how much had changed about the doctor after being away for so long.

He had let his natural hair color, a beautiful burnt orange, grow out and his signature brown hair was no more. Literally, he had no hair left on his head, only his mustache remained. It pained Aban to think about how much it hurt Robotnik to lose his hair, as he remembered the doctor saying it was one of the only things he was able to control in his life. He had become a bit muscular, but not to the point of seeing the person’s veins. Just a nice amount of muscle that made him look even more powerful than he once was, even if he was in a ripped and dirtied flight suit. His face had a few freckles on it, probably from walking around the planet with the hot sun out. He looked so different from the Robotnik he used to deliver coffee to, but he still was the man he had known for so long.

He didn’t notice Robotnik was talking until he shook his head and tried to zone in on what Robotnik was saying, cheeks flushed from embarrassment at being too focused on how handsome the doctor looked now than what orders he was giving to the other.

“So, you’ll be working as my assistant once more and-”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

Aban stood his ground and raised his head. Over the past 6 years that he was alone, he has worked with Robotnik’s machines to the point they knew the specific orders that he gives out based on his movements. All that time spent perfecting those machines, having the control and the power to carry out every task that Robotnik did himself, he wanted to keep it. Not only that, but he felt that going back to their regular boss/worker relationship was wrong. It would only feel like they were going back to their old ways, like nothing happened in between the last time that they saw each other. No, he didn’t want to be Robotnik’s little errand boy or coffee maker any longer. He wanted to work side-by-side with the man he loved, whether he liked it or not. “I’m not going to be your assistant.” As Robotnik opened his mouth, he quickly said, “I want to be your work partner. You don’t get to boss me around anymore, but I still work with you to help you catch Sonic.”

There was a moment of silence as the two men stared at each other. Finally, Robotnik sighed and nodded slowly, putting the goggles onto the monitor. “I suppose it would be better to have you help me than merely assist me.”

Aban grinned as widely as he could at the news, trying to force himself _not_ to jump on Robotnik. The doctor could see his enthusiasm and chuckled softly, turning around to bask in the gloriousness of being surrounded by his technology once more and eventually stopping to face the monitor, signing in and smiling brightly as everything turned on around him.

The hum of the machines made Aban speechless as he lovingly watched Robotnik put something into the monitor that changed the holographic screen turn from a soft sky blue to a murderous dark red. Dr. Ivo Robotnik was back in town, and nobody would be able to stop him, not with Aban Stone standing with him.

* * *

The two men were sitting on a bench on the porch of their cabin, enjoying the gentle fall wind that fluttered their hair softly. The two of them, after years of working as supervillains terrorizing the unsuspecting people of Green Hills, decided to call it quits 3 years ago and live in a cabin in the middle of the woods that was once Sonic’s home. They occasionally went into Green Hills to get essentials, mainly stopping on the road that led to either Tom’s house or Deputy Wade Whipple’s house. (Wade had been less hesitant with agreeing to bring food to the ex-villains, mainly because he did believe that everyone had good within them and that they were attempting to redeem themselves. Tom was obviously more hesitant since he was the one that took care of Sonic and had to be there to take care of the hedgehog’s wounds after their battles, and it was only because of Maddie that he reluctantly handed over their groceries every other week.)

Speaking of the Blue Blur, after the countless times that Ivo tried to capture Sonic to experiment on him, the two decided to create a truce to avoid the government looking into the damage the two created. Sonic would provide quills that had fallen off of him to Ivo, while Ivo studied the DNA and helped Sonic discover the different powers that he had. The two rivals turned into playful friends that occasionally argued about things but it mostly pertained to playful banter.

A leaf fell into Ivo’s cup of peppermint tea (he was slowly easing himself off of his coffee addiction) and the retired doctor chuckled. The gray hairs that had begun growing on his head from the stress of working for the government (coupled with the brunt orange hair he was able to grow back after a couple months living on Earth again) shone in the fading sunlight as he watched two birds huddle together in a nest. Aban swore he never saw a more beautiful sight.

It was this sight of Ivo relaxing, happy, and enjoying the world around him instead of being bitter and yelling at everyone around him because he hadn’t slept well in months and hunched over working on the next robot he was forced to make for the American government, that spurred Aban into standing up. Ivo turned his attention to him, and in order to not look suspicious, Aban took his and Ivo’s cups and mumbled, “Going to refill them.” The other nodded and smiled, leaning his head back as the sun’s light illuminated the gorgeous face the ex-agent fell in love with.

The man walked into the kitchen and filled his cup while he whistled to a nearby Badnik to fly over to him with a small box. The Badniks and all the other robots that Ivo was able to salvage and create, were now helping around the house and tending to the crops, which were mainly corn crops, that Ivo and he planted. Some Badniks were floating in at that moment, carrying bags of corn that the Pikmiks had picked and shucked. Aban chuckled softly as he filled his boyfriend’s cup and put the box in his pocket.

He walked outside and handed the cup to Ivo, who gratefully accepted. They sat in silence before Aban “accidentally” spilled his cup of tea. As he groaned softly, a smirk appeared on his face as he turned toward Ivo on one knee. Ivo immediately knew what was happening and put his tea on the side table they put next to the bench.

“Ivo, I know that so many things have happened to us in the short time we knew each other, so many bad things that brought us pain and tore us away from each other multiple times. But each time, we’ve been brought back together in some way. Each time, we somehow have the strength to stay and understand and figure out the problems we’ve been given. And each time we face a new problem, whether it be the coffee machine breaking down or you…” Aban paused as he remembered the dark years he was alone when Ivo was sent away from Earth. “Or you being gone for years because of some stupid blue mouse, I’ve fallen in love with you more each day because of how much time and energy you put into fixing things and wanting to make things right.

“That isn’t the only reason I love you, but it’s honestly the only thing that I’m able to focus on at the moment,” Aban admitted while giggling softly. “What I’m trying to say is, I love you, Ivo, and I want to be with you for the rest of my life, to solve every problem life throws at us together and to be with you until our dying breaths. Dr. Ivo Robotnik, will you marry me?”

Aban waited for Ivo to reply with something, anything, but all he heard was his shallow breathing. The doctor’s eyes flicked from the ring to Aban to the ring and back again. Tears flooded his eyes as he nodded slowly, grabbing the other by the shirt and pulling him close. Aban began crying as well as he put the ring on the side table and ran his fingers in his now fiance’s hair.

“I love you, Aban. I love you so much.”

Aban giggled and kissed the other on the forehead, grabbing the box again and slipped the ring on Ivo’s finger. “I love you too, with all my heart”.

Even if his life was absolute shit; even if he was in pain for most of his life; even if he now had PTSD, DID, horrifying nightmares, and powers that were obtained from the experiments that his father did on him; Aban “Icarus Salano” Stone-Robotnik would have never traded it for the world.


End file.
